two : columbus day

The linoleum halls of the school bustled with mothers passing staplers and lies between them, their carts filled with wide smiling ghosts and politically correct representations of ghouls and witches in preparation for Halloween. In Mr. McEvoy’s classroom Ian and his classmates made dioramas (the elementary school essay) depicting the spirit of the New World and the magic of discovery. His neighbor Katie Rose dressed little Indians out of baby corn and little explorers out of littler crosses and put them around a popsicle stick table feasting on pizza and spaghetti. Bailey, the product of a mother who couldn’t go 9 hours without a French 75, never mind nine months, couldn’t tell Pilgrims from Conquistadors and thus hot glued a turkey resembling a feathered basketball with googley eyes. Ian, under fresh from a paternal rant on the North American Genocide and eager to use the left overs from his lunchpale cut out five Spanish sailors, each with a grape head, running “fleet” on a Native American woman while dogs turned her children into confetti fashioned from snips of bacon from his BLT. The school saw this as a disturbing risk to student health.
“Ian! What do you call this monstrosity?”
“The grape of the new world?”
Suspended, Ian planned a journey into the forest in search of adventure. At home he packed a backpack with water, a Hi-C, a pocket knife he swiped from his fathers bedside table, twine, binoculars, a map of Washington State and Montana (As he did not for sure know how far he may wonder and did not, at that moment, realize Idaho existed), the Definitive Calvin and Hobbes, and a headset that picked up radio frequencies. He told his mom he was going next door to play Hayden’s new nintendo game, left out the side door, walked straight to their neighbors back door, waited for his mom to disappear from the window and return to her Oprah, then around their house and down onto the street and to where the edge of his neighborhood met the edge of creation. While neighborhood kids usually formed parties for forest bound adventures this time he high kneed over nettles and ferns alone, each step growing softer until he knew the wetness of the refuse and could step without much sound at all. Being sixty-eight pounds helped. After ten minutes of slow stepping the earth shot downwards towards a creek, slow at first, then with dizzying trajectories with jutting rocks covered in slick lichen and lime green moss. He searched the ridge for an old Cedar that leaned as if to spit over the edge. An old garden hung hose hung from one of its branches and coiled around the base of the tree. Two more garden hoses tied end to end attached to the first, all of them faded from their new emerald shade to a sickly waxy pale algae color spotted with the saturation of the woods. Neighborhood legend credited the hose to the Peterman boys before they moved to Chicago, although rumor circulated that they simply found the hose while looking for their mastiff Gibraltar and that it predated even their early explorations. Others insist they found the hose as part of a swing and added the subsequent two hoses to repel down the side. None knew for certain.
Ian gave it a firm yank, tied it under the straps of his backpack and across his front as to secure himself in and placed his heals at the edge. The ravine side gave way, his heals tearing through decaying wood fibers, mounds of black ants, thin snapping vines, sweaty and exposed clay: all giving way as he skated, freeing more hoze as needed. Near the bottom he untied himself and negotiated his backpack free from the knots he’d made. The three o clock hour never looked so dark, the forest never so still; as trees at the top of the ridge and his yard always rolled in breezes even when the air felt statuesque. The high tree-tickling winds left the Aspen and Firs be in the ravine. Scraping clay from the sole of his shoes he felt as though he’d stumbled into an untried frontier when in fact he’d crossed so far he almost made it to the next neighborhood, Cougar Mountain Estates .
He nestled himself under an awning of pine needles and tried in the timid darkness to read Calvin and Hobbes. He ended up just looking at the pictures for a time, the headphones buzzing top 40 from downtown slightly scrambled by the hills between. One calf on the opposite knee, he bobbed a foot to Brooklyn club anthem "ya needa headlamp for mah f*ck cave."
Then he saw a boy walking smoothly, as if on a sidewalk, and not over a conspiracy of low lying plantlife that want nothing more than to esnare. He felt compelled to hide, to go unseen, to stalk. He flipped his headphones off and slithered down the trunk until hid head rest in the nape of the roots. He watched the boy walk plainly, his lower half obscured by ferns until practically out of sight.
Ian gathered his stuffs, stayed low, walked softly and followed in the older boys direction until he found the path of red bark lined with river stones. He kept his eyes down on the ground to avoid piles of horse droppings, some fresh and moist, others little more than clumps of processed hay. He took severe pleasure in the sneaking. Eventually he found a sign that identified the trail as a watershed. He pictured an out-house like building leaking water, but never found it. The trail eventually snaked close to houses, their suburban sounds bled into the forest’s blue hum. A squirrel chased another from branch to branch above them scratching at bark, their little paws furious, chirping.
Then the boy again. He seemed to be sneaking as well, hunched over and crossing the long back lawn of a white two story slice of the american dream. Ian found the boy oddly dressed, a chain dangled from near his belt buckle to his back pocket, he wore tight gray jeans and plaid shoes, black hair made his pale face paler. His dark threads made him difficult to see in the wooded valley but beaming in the yard, especially against the white house, which aimed to convey a civil plainness, a neat perfection. The boy took a moment to duck behind a large obtuse tree that lacked needles and leaves and supported a thin series of planks and walls. Up a series of branches were two by fours hammered in steps up the side of the trunk. Ian immediately recognized it as an abandoned tree fort. Time stained its planks the color of stagnant water.
A second story window went awash with yellow light. A figure appeared, moved a bit, and then disappeared. One by one light popped on through the house until the person appeared behind a sliding door that lead to a raised deck. The boy popped out from behind the tree and walked across the lawn as she closed it behind her, holding her arms across the small of her back. He skipped up the stairs, touching the rail slightly at the top before kissing the girl on the cheek.
Ian pulled out his binoculars, a Christmas gift from an uncle who owned a sporting goods store. The girl and boy stepped inside the sliding glass door then sat at an island in the kitchen; the boy on a barstool and the girl disappearing from view. She returned with a carton of juice and two glasses. They sipped their juice while Ian, motivated by a feeling he did not want to explore; a sort of gun to his back that he wished not to see with his own eyes, climbed the latter of the treefort and set up post. He sat against a dark wall in the back, cloaked, engaging in what a wiser man would see as forbidden. A young Timothy Murphy sliding belly down into the muck of infamy. Oh, you don’t know Timothy Murphy?

one : what little we had

Eli and Kate grew up in a neighborhood of perfect blue lawns, of sealed black concrete that bled tar in the summer heat, of paperless immigrants trimming bush in hats that told any who saw how far they’d come. Retrievers and mutts made trails under hedges, school buses hushed children with hydraulics breaks exhaling as they slowed and although it rained more than it didn’t, all things considered they came of age in a time and a place that could be no less described as paradise. Never had so many walked gardens so perfect, the zeitgeist then longing for an invisible white citadel behind intangible walls, safe from all foulness ardent or faint. The prodigal sons and daughters of dear Roma traded their striped togas for barbarian chariots.
Sixteen miles to the gallon but hits sixty in 4-5 flat.
Nice.
But I must confess:
I am a spy.
A subversive.
A really unpleasant agent.
A total asshole.
A ruffian? No. Not a ruffian, I stay well shaved, meticulously dressed and always hold doors for ladies.
A rapist? Most certainly, in a loose sense of the word. Murderer?
Only through neglect, excluding naturally, the ways in which we are all killing ourselves and everyone around us, always. Am I the worst kind of person? We’ll I’ve never held office...but wouldn’t admit, to god or lover, that I’ve harbored notions and thoughts that may very well brought Alexander of Macedon, all the Kahn clan, Hitler, Germanicus, Pol Pot, Andrew Jackson, and Stalin to wipe their hands clean of my poker table and declare “game over” if I were to share what I could do with just a plastic desk chair of unassailable power. I haven’t a name or ambition. I am fire shaped and as certain as writing on water. I am living in the subconscious of an eight year old incarnate, as I am the spirit of Revolutionary General Horatio Gates. That’s “fondue” Gates if you know. Have you heard of the battle of Saratoga? Kind of important in the run of American history . I won two engagements at Freeman Farm, gave the Redcoats a fine blasting, then in the heat of the moment ran them down, butchered em proper, hung them from trees, then torched the trees, raped their filthy anuses with bayonets left idle in campfires until the white hot points committed searing flesh to a smoky sour steam. We burned so many of them the rocks along the Mohawk River ran slick with melted fat so when the rain came it slid in tears, leaving no residue or trace or wetness upon the stone. Tip of the hat the Khans for that. I mean fuck that General Tso, that’s not even a real dish anyway. All the Chinese eat are crabs and tofu and spring rolls, which, lets face it are about as phallic as they come, second only to the Almond Creamsicle or any baked good found in a San Francisco variety bakery. Yes, I said it, variety bakery.
But, and I cannot stress this enough, this isn’t about vagina fritters: its about Eli and Kate and how they are beautiful.

My vessel, the eight year old, is a decent enough carrier as far as reincarnations go. It could be far worse. That reminds me! True story:
While idle in the afterlife waiting for bipedal reassignment I ran into none other than Pericles the Athenian who, after fifteen lifetimes reincarnated as a grave digger, received notice he would spend his next life as a gooey duck in the shores of Hood Canal rolling tongue across mud in search of protein left by decomposing sea life. Shaking his head he told me ‘God must be a Spartan.” I disagreed, insisting God was simply a woman, or at least effeminate male, and that next time he gets a square shot at life he should do more to prevent the slaughter of his people. “Have you tried melting your enemies?”
There I go again! Loving the sound of my own voice. Back to the boy, my vessel, Ian. He’s a dirty bugger, about four feet in height, nearly fourteen stones , spends most his time mashing buttons on a game or something, making a glassy flatness flicker with some sort of witchcraft. The boy took to masturbating awfully early, at least by my opinion. Although he did not produce ejaculate he did marvel curiously at the phenomenon of his penis changing shape and consistency. For a time he tried to induce this by retaining urine that he thought would lead to expansion. Like a water ballon draped This made perfect sense. It made him piss his pants.
He wears mostly hand me downs from his brothers not because his family can’t afford better but because both his parents are lazy types who themselves donned hand me downs so like father, like son. He looks orphaned; swimming in the fabrics like a monk. He likes to tuck his knees to his chest during class and “turtle” up to nap. No one notices. The kids run amuck in that school of his and no one canes them into knowing better.
Ian enjoys dirtying himself in conifer forests around his house with other dirty boys in his grade year. They pluck frogs and newts from their families and drop them in tanks to do battle with other frogs and newts that, lacking both teeth and violent dispositions, make amphibious chit chat until they die of dehydration, becoming salty little crackers stuck to the walls of their death chambers. Thank god there’s a whole forest of them!
Ian lived with his parents, two aged hippies who push fifty but claim forty on account of the years 1967-1975 disappearing into a vortex from which they emerged married, broke, under investigation for conspiracy to commit grand bovine larceny and perhaps most strange, as capable musicians specializing on the Indian string instrument the Sitar. In eight years of their generation accomplishing absolutely nothing they accrued a great sense of accomplishment. One they demonstrated to Ian by relating stories from the era that made less sense to the boy the more he thought about them.
They sold a line of towels and bathmats made from recycled coffee cups. A guilt cleansing gold mine.
Each morning before school Ian’s mother served him half an ounce of wheat grass in preparation for the toxins Reagan let industrialists pump into the atmosphere. After that he’d hang out at the bus stop in front of his neighbors house sending little puffs of breath up to join clouds as the boys on his street pretended to smoke the cold. He fidgeted often, adjusting himself under clothes purchased for his brother in the late nineties. They never fit, as his brother Toby, now living in a commune outside Fall City, took after his mothers side of the family, tall and dark, while he took after his father’s side; anything but. When the bus came he’d hop on board sit somewhere near the middle, far enough back to avoid snot that covered the lips of kindergarteners in the winter and just shy of the loosely defined “back” where sixth graders held ass whooping court. He sat usually next to Scott a pudgy and clumsy delinquent or the unabashedly-dressed-by-his-mother Tommy (the odd man out being forced to sit next to pony and pink obsessed Melissa Ferguson, yuck!) to continue the shit talking that made their every morning a heated debate from minds that may have well been experiencing the world upside down like newborns. Scott once insisted his cousin, um, Craig, knew this guy in uuuuh, Bellingham, who got his thingy stuck in a woman’s thingy.
Vagiiina?
SHHHH!
What? Ian asked. Tommy feared trouble at the mentioning of genetalia.
Bus drivers aren’t teachers or anything, Ian reminded them, then stood on his backpack and leaned over the seatback in front of him to shout at the Driver.
VAGINA!
The woman driving: middle aged, curly haired, and in a wrinkled sweat suit that once screamed Japanese tourist, shook her bushy head and took another snip off her opaque water bottle. Looking up she caught a golden blur of retriever darting in the street and slammed the brakes as the students let out a choral whoa! Ian went ass over tea kettle off the seatback into Tommy and Melissa who sat next to each other but with their backpacks between them as a means of protecting themselves from the insidious other. He knocked the hair-thingy out of her hair, but being natural gentlemen directed most of his mass at Tommy who, unable to hold his weight, collapsed down, sliding on the grass and dew that collected under seats from sneakers every morning. The all screamed needlessly.

i ordered a cake with this stripper!

I recently bought a record via itunes that came with that little red label “Explicit.” While the thrill of listening to explicit music for explicit’s sake has long left me, I couldn’t help but expect something a little shocking to the conscious, something I wouldn’t want to shout in front of my grandmother no matter how def she’s become. I listened to the record in its entirety and was left scratching my head. What exactly did the lead singer say that was offensive? While I was too lazy to google the lyrics or listen to the forty seven minutes over, I did have the energy to feel a little cheated. I recall with total clarity being seven years old, holed up in my playfort with a boom box while my friend Sean played his “Onyx” CD. It had a parental advisory sticker and I had the kind of joy that comes from taking a dip in the forbidden. It was a simpler time, as one listen of Onyx title hit, SLAM, explained why it had a rating sticker as Sticky Fingaz quips “Standin in my b-boy stance/ Hurry up and give me the microphone before I bust in my pants” before Sonee Seeza says “my mind, it's graphic, expresstic graphic - So kill the cop because it's kept all mastic” Whatever the hell that means, I couldn’t tell you, but Seeza seems less than pleeza’d with law enforcement. Other songs on the Onyz record include “Black V****a Finder” and “Bacdafucup” which is also the name of the record. Here’s what I’m saying, if I’m going to spend 9.99 on a record labeled “Explicit” it better be explicit. Petty? What would you say if you paid 9.50 to see a movie that stared Syvlester Stallone as Rambo but ended up being about Rambo building a greenhouse by his local elementary school to teach a group of troubled but well meaning youths about the joys of horticulture? You’d feel cheated, right? As you should. Rambo should bust domes and slice communists, not prune rose bushes. Explicit Parental Advisory stickers are like a stamp of approval from foul mouthed music lovers the world over. That's all I'm saying.

OUT M*ther F****r

warsacomin

I wish I could tell a story about you. About that night on the island where we slipped out from the bunks and went tracing our palms over the tips of yellow grass growing just past the ocean’s grasp. We didn’t know each other, not really anyway, but you followed me and I pretended to be cool with the distance growing between us and the teachers, administrators, and how each step was one more we’d have to retrace if we needed a hasty retreat. Rocks grinding under our feet and the shimmer of Puget Sound crackled together, tapping some sleeping sense that drove us deeper into the dark malaise. Every time it felt we’d gone far enough I found myself still walking up and over the bends of the island's coast until we found footing on something flat and purposeful, designed by man.

What’s this?
I don’t know I said. Cement?
Well duh.

We found chain link and rebar. Fragmented walkways, jig saw side walks. You pulled out a flashlight.

Why’d you bring that?
To see.
Why didn’t we use it earlier? My knee burned from a scrape.
Didn’t want to be seen she said. Click. We had light. She dragged it behind me until I saw a gap in the island and stairs dug into the ground.

This is weird. I agreed. Bolder now, I started down them, stopping at a door, placing my hands on the smooth lead gray paint. It flaked under my fingernails.

Come on.
Okay. I bet its locked.

Then you were behind me, pushing as I pushed. The hinges cried, the door went forward and we found ourselves falling forward into the dark.

Where are we?
Can I have the flashlight? You refused. I stepped to the side of the door. Ladies first. You called my bluff. The flashlight groped all corners of the room; a simple cement box with one more door on its far side identical to the one we just pushed open save for one important detail; it was ajar. Puddles of water lined the narrow halls. I expected to hear mice scamper away from us but these rooms had no life, just a breeze, a tide of air coming and going, pulling faint whistles around the crumbling corners of aged cement.

Where’s the air coming from.
What? I didn’t understand.
The wind has to be coming from somewhere. Where?

We followed the flow. Sweat on my face and cheeks collected chills from it. At the end of a long hallway we found two more wet stairs that took us to a room shaped like an oriental fan, rounded at the far end, coming to a point at the entrance. It faced the ocean, the majority of its far wall a panoramic gap covering the north side of the island. We could see, even in the dark, the silhouettes of islands farther north, the starlight on the sound and the roll of white water coming in on the north beach. You turned the flashlight off. Peering over the edge of the gap we were some twelve feet above the rocks. I knew what this was.

This is so weird you said. Why is this here?

As a precaution I said. Something like that. Thank god you said nothing, thank god we did nothing but sit with our legs dangling out of the windows, our backs to rooms as still as coffins in the earth in this antique bunker; the kind of place that instills stillness, where men go when they accept doom and fear open sky. I always wondered what you were thinking then.

Eight years later I find the taste of that memory clashing with its clarity. Yet no grand finale and no one wiser for their troubles. Just loose recollections of shadows playing by the coast, your dark form cut against the blue night, stumbling and reaching for balance in unavailing memory.